Decolonial Archeology of Migration Spaces

Abstract

In this article, we consider artifacts relating to the Ukrainian refugee population located in reception contexts, namely, the cities of Bern, Switzerland; Warsaw, Poland; Dresden, Germany; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; and Vilnius, Lithuania. Within these contexts, we use archeological methods of examining material artifacts (e.g., objects, landscapes) in the present time to glean meaning about lifestyle, social organization, and community relations. We suggest that by centering artifacts, we, as non-refugee, non-Ukrainian researchers living in reception contexts, might rupture the colonial relationships inherent in researcher/researched configurations and move toward decolonial inquiry. We attempt to uncover our own understandings of the artifacts as arrival infrastructure, questioning the intentions for their use, how they might be “read” and what their impact might be. We hope that by turning the lens from the migrants themselves to our own self-reflection, we might better understand the beliefs, concerns, and desires among reception community members. We find in the artifacts a matrix of government messages and tension-inducing provocations by individuals and institutions, and we find in ourselves contradictions and recognition that we actively co-construct migration space—and potentially, but not necessarily, coalitions—in part through our interaction with our contemporary archeology.